There doesn't seem to be any live television coverage of the Rally America events this year... but in return Rally America has a YouTube channel.
Follow the link above to the YouTube channel for Rally America.
This is better than nothing... and of course we don't get any live WRC coverage anymore either (thanks to Speed TV and it's NASCAR focus). Fortunately, NASCAR seems to be finally sinking under it's own weight... perhaps Speed TV will reconsider.
For Driving Enthusiasts, Texas is a very nice place to be these days. We have year-round events, a terrific group running HPDEs, and several tracks.
The Drivers Edge (http://www.TheDriversEdge.net/) is the best HPDE group I've seen in my 28 years in this hobby. Thanks to the management of this group, a large body of experienced instructors, and it's "non-denominational" approach ("run what you brung" - meaning no snotty brand-centricity, as in the LSR PCA), high performance drivers education is doing very well in Texas these days. I'm proud to be an Instructor in this group (having abandoned the LSR PCA when their elitism got the better of them).
Texas is also doing very nicely for roadcourses these days: we have Texas World Speedway (TWS: the original, the best, and the fastest) in College Station, Texas Motor Speedway (TMS: for one event a year, with challenging banking on the NASCAR oval) outside of Fort Worth, Eagles Canyon near Decatur (a new track; our first event there is coming soon), and the very well-established and recently expanded Motorsport Ranch in Cresson. Also:
there is another Motorsport Ranch facility near Houston, but design and management issues prevent it's use for these types of events.
there was an announcement of a new facility named "Racers Ranch" to be located east of Dallas, but that project appears stalled and unable to get off the ground for the time being.
and there was also a roadcourse in Corpus Cristi on the airstrip at the US Naval Base, however this has been closed to racers since 9/11 and may never reopen.
When I originally moved to Texas in 1989, TWS was in bankruptcy and there weren't any other roadcourses in the state. Now we have several open, and two more on top of these are also being discussed.
The brand new Harris Hill Road facility is nearly completion and is coming along very well. All paving is complete, and enough is there for a few test laps at slow speed. Follow the link above for more information.
Photos below show the Harris Hill Road pit area, and the general scope of the track. This is particularly nice for me - it's located practically in my own backyard.
What we don't have in Texas is an established and continuing road rally program: a few groups such as the Miata Club and Texas A&M SportsCar Club run a (very) few events between them. A group in Dallas also ran a navigator's school once to my knowledge. What we need is a dedicated Rallymaster who will establish and run a continuing event. The best example I've seen of this is the "Discover America Rally": (http://www.rallywny.com/rallywny/DARflyer2007.htm ) in Western New York. I entered several Discover America events when I lived in that area back in the 70s and 80s. The husband and wife team who run them, Tom and Karen Krajewski, make a strong commitment to running the event every year. Running a rally means becoming intimately familiar with hundreds of back roads and their oddities and nuances (all the better for challenging route navigation) and driving them continuously in advance of the event. And it means dedicating probably a hundred hours of hard work towards it every year in order to make sure it comes off well, which, snowstorms allowing, it has for 30 years straight. These types of folks are hard to find... keeping them at it is even harder. I'm hoping somebody in Texas steps up to the plate one of these days - and that many of us make a commitment to help them run the events year after year.
Interested in rallying? A pair of enthusiasts in Canada have created a new site dedicated to rallying in North America, with additional worldwide coverage.
Going back in time to Buffalo NY, 25 years ago. November in Buffalo is a time I remember well...
Being a car-nut, it meant that the summer racing season (autocross and Open Track events) was over and it was time to put the car away for the winter. Of course, I stretched it out for a few weeks from the first sub-zero day until the first snowfall, since I certainly preferred driving my nice summer car instead of my old winter car. But at some point the first snowfall comes and it's time to switch cars. My summer cars were Mustangs, and my winter cars over the years were a mix of German Mercury Capris and American Ford Escorts. The Capri will be the subject of an entire post in the near future... I believe I picked up the car just before the winter of 1981. I'd run 4 snow tires and get by ok; although obviously traction wasn't perfect in this rear-wheel drive car. At the time I was a college student, so money was in short supply and the tires weren't always in great condition. The Escorts came later and were much better winter cars - they could run all year with just all-season tires and of course front-wheel drive made for far better traction.
So the major downside was that I had to put the good car away and get out the old car. If there was an upside, it was that this time of year was also a really great time of year for TSD (time-speed-distance) car rallies. I was a member of the Southtown Rally Club (as I think it was named - if it exists anymore I can't find it) for a number of years, as well as another rally club. We ran rallies all year round, but the fall and winter were the best of times because the climates and roads got progressively more challenging.
The object of a TSD rally, if you haven't been on one, if to match the time and mileage of the route setup by the rally master. A route you identify as you are driving it from the provided instructions. It isn't a speed event, but it is about maintaining an average speed on the public roads it was run on. You have to decipher instructions and follow the route the rallymaster created - solely with instructions such as "turn left at 3.2 miles past last turn". Periodic checkpoints would check your progress and time. Off-course checkpoints would catch you if your measurements were off - for example if you saw a turn at 3.1 miles and took it. Many participants found themselves completely lost if they didn't interpret the instructions correctly.
The fall rally season would start in the October timeframe with an all-day rally that ran over several counties south of Buffalo for a couple of hundred miles. This would start in the morning and run until dinner time, when the prizes for most accurate time and navigation would be handed out. The rally was named "Discover America", the rallymaster and event organizer was Tom Krajewski, and - incredibly - it's still running these days. I remember that my Ford dealer in Arcade NY was usually a sponsor. The owner, Les Halazi, enjoyed rallying a lot. The first time I met him, he was driving an untitled Ford Futura right off the showroom floor (it'd be sold with a couple of hundred miles on it).
The next big rally of the season was the annual Halloween rally, which besides navigational challenges included stopping by graveyards to pick out clues. Prizes were given for the most involved costume. In 1981 (or 1982?), my friend and I went as the the Bell Hoop Elves from the Wizard of Oz. Weird costumes, and it took a lot of nerve to wear them. But it was a purposely calculated risk (and also there weren't any other costumes to rent by the time we got around to picking out some) and we won the best costume award because of it. I've got a picture, but it will *never* be seen in public. I remember that we had to drape the back of the hoop over the back of the Recaro seats in my Mustang in order to drive. Furthermore, on the way home that evening after the rally party, some kids thru some rocks down on my car from an overpass. Once I got out of the car, I gave chase in the outfit - I can't imagine what they were thinking!
The winter rallies would get progressively tougher - the conditions would worsen, snow and ice would be the major problem. I remember that the driving was just as tough as following instructions. By the time the snow really piled up around the end of November and beginning of December, we were well tuned "winter drivers" and could handle anything as long as the road was passable at all. And sometimes it barely was... one rally post-Thanksgiving in approximately 1982 had us driving a Camaro with 2 old snow tires down roads in the southern counties that had walls of frozen snow and ice over 10 feet tall on each side of the road. It was literally driving down tunnels... it was outright hazardous... and the car was not at all prepared for it. Nonetheless, we tied for first place overall... and the jerks organizing the rally gave the prize to the other car solely because it's owner had prepared for rallies with a professional rally computer and 4 snow tires. We felt we should have gotten the first prize because we had a far tougher driving experience in a far more challenging car that obviously took a lot more skill to overcome. But our prize was a 20 pound turkey... and neither of us had any need for that.
So while the season was tough, and getting a lot tougher, all of us made the most of it and managed to continue in our motorsport hobby, such as it was. And that's how it worked in Buffalo - whatever your interests were it was important to dive right into them or else you ended up hibernating all winter and hating the climate even more. That's why you see Buffalo Bills fans sitting in their open stadium (under any conditions - even wind chill well below zero) and enjoying their game. And that's why we went out and drove challenging roads all year round, no matter the weather. Call it making lemonade out of lemons, it was good times.
If you haven't seen Pikes Peak, make plans. The event will literally not exist in this form one day soon, as the 'peak will inevitably get completely paved over.
There are many more videos on Pikes Peak - use the search function.
There doesn't seem to be any live television coverage of the Rally America events this year... but in return Rally America has a YouTube channel.
